Altered small-world property of a dynamic metabolic network in murine left hippocampus after exposure to acute stress

The acute stress response is a natural and fundamental reaction that balances the physiological conditions of the brain. To maintain homeostasis in the brain, the response is based on changes over time in hormones and neurotransmitters, which are related to resilience and can adapt successfully to acute stress. This increases the need for dynamic analysis over time, and new approaches to examine the relationship between metabolites have emerged. This study investigates whether the constructed metabolic network is a realistic or a random network and is affected by acute stress. While the metabolic network in the control group met the criteria for small-worldness at all time points, the metabolic network in the stress group did not at some time points, and the small-worldness had resilience after the fifth time point. The backbone metabolic network only met the criteria for small-worldness in the control group. Additionally, creatine had lower local efficiency in the stress group than the control group, and for the backbone metabolic network, creatine and glutamate were lower and higher in the stress group than the control group, respectively. These findings provide evidence of metabolic imbalance that may be a pre-stage of alterations to brain structure due to acute stress.